A/N: Sorry for the delay in updating–my internet connection has been deeply sucktastic and unreliable lately. For those who need warnings of such things (other than ROMANCE in the subject, duh), lemons are on the horizon. This should be blatantly obvious to anyone who reads this chapter. (Sorry, BadSakura, you've gotta wait until NEXT chapter to actually read any lemony goodness–hey, anticipation's good for ya, right?) I think the T rating should still cover it, but if anyone thinks I need to bump the rating, please let me know, ta muchly. Also FYI, occasional mild OOC-ness may occur from this point on–of course I don't think so, but if I did, would I have written it that way?
As stated before, I still don't own Naruto, associated characters, canon plots, or a Ferrari. Still written for fun, still not making any profit off it. Please keep reviewing, my darlings, flames will be used to toast marshmallows, and now on with the show…
The night was old and the moon almost down by the time the exhausted Team Kakashi passed through the gates into the Hidden Leaf Village a week later. Sakura supported Sai while Kakashi carried Naruto on his back. "Take him to the hospital, Sakura," Kakashi told her, frowning at the barely-conscious genin's still-bleeding arm. Sai was shivering non-stop and it wasn't all due to the unseasonable spring cold snap. "Tsunade-sama should be able to do something about that venom and get the bleeding stopped. I'll take care of Naruto and we'll meet up at the Hokage's office tomorrow, all right?"
"Right," Sakura said, nodding sharply. She alone showed no wounds from their fight with the snakes that had attacked them just outside the village gates.
Sai hadn't been so lucky. The snakes had come literally out of nowhere, a summoning trap triggered by nothing more than walking across the cursed patch of road. The serpents had been all over him before any of them had realized the severity of the unexpected attack. To his credit, Sai had taken out the one that had bitten him almost instantly, but by the time its severed head hit the ground, a dozen others had sprung from nothingness to take its place. With his arm bleeding heavily and all but useless, Sai hadn't been able to use the cartoon jutsu that were his specialty, but still he'd fought like a lion.
Naruto had been magnificent in the battle, as had Sakura. The giant snakes, each twenty feet long and thicker than a man's thigh, made for quite a fight. Sai collapsed within minutes as the venom tore through his body. Enraged at the sight of the snakes closing in on Sai while he lay helpless, Naruto had lost control of his always volatile temper. That was why he was unconscious now–Kakashi, upon seeing the Fox's blood-red chakra cloak starting to emerge, had sent a powerful surge of his own chakra through the seal Jiraiya had given him and slapped it on Naruto's forehead. It brought the demon back under control, but it also knocked Naruto out cold.
With two teammates now unable to fight, he and Sakura had managed to finish off the last of the snakes on their own. Then Kakashi had used his Sharingan to find the curse marks on the road while Sakura attempted to stop Sai's bleeding. It had taken the Mangekyo to neutralize the jutsu, a technique which exhausted him in the best of times. He'd used too much chakra to do it, but he hadn't hesitated. Only once Kakashi was certain there was no further danger would he allow his team to enter the Hidden Leaf Village and the safety it represented.
Orochimaru's trap, set literally right at the village gates, was a taunt they couldn't ignore. Kakashi knew Sakura would report it to the Hokage immediately–a break with protocol, since the team leader should really be the one reporting in, but there wasn't much help for it. Kakashi was simply too worn out to be much use to anyone right now. All he wanted was to dump Naruto in bed somewhere so he could collapse and let the oblivion of sleep replenish his severely depleted chakra.
He shifted Naruto on his back as his gaze fell on the spot where Suyo had hugged him so fiercely before they'd left on this mission. "Come see me the instant you get back," she'd commanded, holding the boy like she'd never wanted to let him go. "The instant, do you hear me?"
Her worried face swam in his mind's eye, along with vivid memories of what she'd been through and all she'd lost. Despite his attempts to reassure her, Kakashi knew she'd been worrying for the last week and wouldn't stop until she'd seen for herself that Naruto had returned in one piece.
Kakashi sighed and changed his direction, already coming up with reasons for his choice as he headed toward her building instead of Naruto's. It would be better for Naruto to be with Suyo than alone in his own little flat, anyway, and Kakashi was positive she'd be glad to have him stay in her spare room until he regained consciousness. Then she could fuss over him and feed him something that didn't start its life in a styrofoam container, and they'd all feel better for it.
And seeing him would take the fear from her eyes. Not that her eyes had anything to do with Kakashi's decision, of course.
It didn't take long to arrive at her building. He had to do a little calculating in his head to make sure he knocked on the right door–until now, he'd only looked through the window on the opposite side of the building. After a moment, a light came on inside and shone beneath the door. There was an instant's delay where he imagined Suyo looking through the peephole, wondering who was calling on her at three in the morning, before the locks clicked and she flung the door open wide.
"He's fine, I promise," Kakashi said hurriedly before she could panic at the sight of Naruto slung unconscious over his back. "This blood isn't his–it's from some snakes we fought. He barely got a scratch."
"Then why–why's he–" Her voice was strangled, nearly inaudible, but he understood her question.
And he had absolutely no intention of answering it. He still wasn't sure if Suyo knew of Naruto's connection to the kyuubi, and he certainly wouldn't be the one to volunteer that information if she didn't. "He just needs some sleep. The fight wore him out," Kakashi replied instead, hoping his tone was soothing and confident enough to allay her worries. "He'll be as hyper as ever in the morning, I guarantee it. I hope you don't mind that I brought him here," he added, mentally kicking himself. Too late he realized that the sight of the boy covered in blood might remind her of things best left buried.
Pale as milk, Suyo ushered them inside, hand pressed to her throat. After the door was closed behind them, she took a shuddering breath and spoke again. This time, her voice sounded almost normal. "Of course I don't mind, Naruto's always welcome here–so are you, Kakashi-san. Please, bring him this way. I've got a spare room where he stays sometimes," she said, speaking too fast as she led him across the living room. He pretended not to see how her hand trembled when she reached for the doorknob. "Your wrist is bleeding–what about you? Are you all right?"
Kakashi lowered Naruto carefully onto the bed. "Yes, we're both fine," he said, straightening with a barely-repressed groan of relief. Carrying him had aggravated the only injuries he'd sustained in the fight, a pair of shallow lacerations on his shoulder and one on the back of his wrist. Luckily for him, they'd come from the snakes' razor-tipped tails–he'd been luckier than Sai and managed to avoid their poisonous fangs. "We just got a few scratches. Trust me, it looks a lot worse than it actually is."
He started to pull the covers over Naruto, then paused at the sight of the blood on his orange jumpsuit. Although he'd told Suyo the truth and the vast majority of it came from the snakes they'd vanquished rather than the boy, he couldn't tuck him in like this–the blood would ruin her bedding.
But Suyo stopped him before he could tug Naruto's jacket off. "Don't worry about that–I'll get him cleaned up while you have some tea and warm up by the fire. You look frozen solid. It can't be more than a few degrees above freezing out there tonight. When I'm done with him, I'll take care of you."
Kakashi followed her out of the spare room but didn't sit down when she indicated the cushions before her little fireplace. "Arigato, Suyo-chan, I appreciate the offer, but it's nothing. I'll let Naruto practice healing them tomorrow," he demurred, but she ignored him as she tossed another log on the dying embers and prodded the fire back to life.
"I won't take no for an answer," she said firmly over her shoulder as she went into the kitchen and began making him some tea. "Please, make yourself comfortable while I tend to Naruto. You'll be able to warm yourself, and then I'll bandage you up."
Her concern had already warmed him. Kakashi looked around the little room, trying to distract himself from the strange and unfamiliar tightness crowding his chest. Despite his exhaustion, it actually invigorated him. It felt surreal to actually be inside after watching from the neighboring roof so many times. Now, with the building silent around them and the night pressing at the windows, the apartment felt far too small and intimate–especially with Suyo bustling around the kitchen in her short robe with her long hair spilling loose down her back. Her legs were bared to mid-thigh and for a moment he couldn't tear his gaze from them… until he saw the scars.
He was no stranger to scars. But Suyo had more of them than any shinobi he'd ever seen.
Thin slashes bisected both calves. Star-shaped scars marked the back of each knee. More thin slashes followed her hamstrings up the backs of her legs, and deep silver lines cut parallel across her outer thighs. When she turned, he saw broad bands of smoothly healed skin over the front of her knees, as though the skin had been sliced away in strips. Beneath those, twin rows of tiny, round dots ran the length of both shins. The markings branched out along the line of each of her foot bones all the way down to her toes… which had no toenails, just bare tips.
But the scars on her ankles were different from the others. Thick, ugly bands of twisted flesh encircled them, and he didn't have to guess what had caused those.
After all, he'd seen the shackles in the photos.
Kakashi stared in horror at the evidence of what she'd been subjected to in Orochimaru's prison camp. Rage momentarily crashed through his veins at the thought of this gentle woman enduring such torture.
Her hands were still shaking as she put the kettle on the stove, and the sight helped him to push aside his fury. In its wake, the urge to take her in his arms, to comfort her, to chase all her fears away and swear to protect her forever, crashed over him. He actually took two steps toward her before he managed to stop himself.
What was he thinking? He wasn't the type to give out hugs and comfort.
It had to be his fatigue that was making him think this way. He had to get out, had to escape before he did something completely insane. "You're very kind to offer me first aid, but I couldn't inconvenience you," he said, moving toward the door.
Suyo spun around with surprising speed and got there first. Kakashi raised an eyebrow as she blocked his path. "I'm not kind, I'm stubborn," she told him, pointing firmly at the cushions in front of the fire again. "And you're not an inconvenience. I already told you I won't take no for an answer. Please stay, Kakashi-san, or…" She paused, obviously trying to think of a threat that would intimidate a jounin, then suddenly laughed. "Or I'll be forced to tell Naruto that you hurt my feelings. Heaven knows what mischief he'd come up with to punish you for it."
Good threat. He gave in and let her usher him back to the fireplace. "Well, I would hate to have to endure the wrath of Naruto," he sighed, sinking down on the thick cushions she plumped for him. Heat seeped into his chilled hands as he held them before the flames. "I'll surrender, but you should know it's only because you blackmailed me."
Suyo laughed again and returned to the kitchen. A moment later, she returned with a steaming cup of tea. It smelled wonderfully strong, just like he liked it. "Thank you," he said as he accepted the cup.
"I'll take care of Naruto while you drink your tea," Suyo said, straightening up. "I'll announce myself before I come back in, all right?"
She was giving him privacy to remove his mask so he could drink the tea, he realized, and would give him enough warning that he could replace it before she returned. So many people had tried almost anything to see what he hid beneath the mask, but Suyo was respecting his privacy. "Thank you," Kakashi murmured again, meaning it this time. She smiled and disappeared into Naruto's room.
Kakashi drank his tea slowly and listened to Suyo moving around in Naruto's room. She'd sweetened the tea without asking, as if knowing he needed the extra jolt of energy. He closed his eyes after he finished it and breathed deeply, his mask still down around his neck, letting his tired mind wander.
That soft scent he'd first detected when Naruto had introduced Suyo was stronger in here. No matter how he tried, he still couldn't identify that indefinable something. A combination of wildflowers and sweet dumplings, perhaps–or was it tea and clean linen? Whatever it was, the aroma always clung to Suyo. He wished he could bottle it and carry it with him, because it was the loveliest thing he'd ever experienced.
Tugging his mask back into place dampened the scent and he pushed aside a pang of remorse at its loss. The fire crackled and he concentrated on that instead. Shifting just a bit put his back against the curved side of a hutch, and he stretched his legs out before him to soak up the fire's heat and closed his eyes.
It couldn't have been longer than a few minutes before he heard Suyo tapping at the doorframe of the spare room. "I've finished the tea," Kakashi said, raising his head so she could see that his mask was back in place. "And it was wonderful, just what I needed. Thank you."
Suyo nodded as she crossed the distance between them. He took the opportunity to survey her, to make sure he hadn't upset her unduly by showing up here bloodied and beaten–but he had, he realized at once. Her eyes, slightly reddened as though she'd been crying, were still steady as she surveyed him from head to toe. Still, she didn't show any sign of fear or hesitancy as she stopped beside him. His admiration for her strength went up another notch–she didn't suppress her emotions, only found a private place to release them. And she didn't try to hide from him that she'd done so.
But she had chosen to hide her scars, and Kakashi realized with a flash of guilt that she must've seen him looking at them. She'd put on a longer robe, one that fully covered her legs, and had pulled on socks to conceal her feet and ankles.
Shinobi wore their scars with pride, knowing each was a testament to their strength and a reminder a victory in battle. But there was no pride or victory in scars like Suyo's.
"Now you can tell me what happened while I tend to you," she said, interrupting his thoughts, and he saw she carried a bowl of clean water and a roll of linen bandages on a tray.
"Really, I couldn't put you to the trouble–" Kakashi began, the refusal automatic, but Suyo stopped him by simply dropping to her knees beside him and placing her fingers across his lips.
"Shh," she murmured, then winked at him again. "Don't make me sic Naruto on you."
But Kakashi barely heard her. The soft pressure of her fingers through the cloth of his mask sent an unexpected jolt of electricity down his spine.
And with that jolt came the realization of why he'd never come here with Naruto.
Oh, not that he'd ever lacked reasons. Kakashi had a thousand of them. The greatest hits played through his head anew. At first he'd been certain that Suyo had only invited him out of courtesy, knowing he'd decline. Once it became clear she was sincere, he'd reminded himself that she didn't really know what he was like. No one in their right mind would want him around for a social event–he was just a little too strange, even for a jounin, and his social skills were nonexistent at best. While Suyo had managed to keep her dinner gatherings fun even when Sai and Sakura were bickering and Naruto was bouncing off the walls, Kakashi wasn't sure she was ready to deal with him.
If that hadn't been enough to dissuade him from accepting, all he had to do was remind himself of what she'd been through before settling in Konoha. The Land of Tea had no hidden village, no shinobi force of its own. The first time Suyo had ever seen a ninja, they'd destroyed her village and murdered her parents. Then she'd spent two years in captivity and torture at the hands of those same shinobi and been forced to see her husband, child, and nearly everyone she'd ever known die. When the Leaf's ANBU had arrived and taken out the Sound shinobi, they'd ended up killing the last remnants of her village en route to Konoha rather than rescuing them. Amazingly enough, Suyo had never seemed frightened around any of the other shinobi so frequently seen around the village despite all this. Still, he couldn't quite believe she could ever fully accept any ninja other than her savior, Naruto.
Which brought him to the most important reason of all. Kakashi told himself he stayed away because the time Suyo and Naruto spent together was so clearly precious to him. Naruto quite literally glowed with happiness when he was with Suyo, and she loved him unconditionally as no one ever had before. Kakashi himself had vowed not to let anything or anyone disrupt the friendship Naruto needed so badly. He loved Suyo with all his heart and might've been jealous if he had to share her.
But now Kakashi knew all those reasons had merely been layers of excuses to hide a far more disturbing truth.
He hadn't accepted any of her invitations precisely because of how badly he yearned to accept them, and he didn't know how to handle that. It was because she confused him, this civilian who'd endured more than many jounin and yet somehow still managed to keep her heart open. It was because she never once lost her temper at Naruto's hyperactivity, Sai's unintentional insults, or Sakura's habit of punching one or both of them over the dinner table. It was because she could somehow sense when Kakashi was watching her and yet didn't seem to mind… in fact, she smiled whenever she caught him at it. It was because she was one of the strongest people he'd ever met despite knowing exactly nothing about jutsus or battle, and he admired her as he'd admired few people in his life.
In short, it was because Kakashi was jealous of Naruto.
Just once, damn it, for once in his violent, barren life, he wanted to have someone look at him and really see him–not White Fang's son, not the ANBU Hound, not Sharingan no Kakashi, not the false front he'd created of the jaded, lazy, chronically late porn addict, not even as a ninja. Somewhere in there, under all of that, there was a man who was tired of being invisible. Fed up with being the perfect emotionless shinobi.
And Suyo's lovely green eyes always saw him, no matter how he tried to hide.
Kakashi closed his eyes for an instant, mentally reeling. He didn't need to wonder why he'd created such an elaborate mesh of rationalizations to hide this from himself–he might be in denial, but he'd never been stupid.
It was because he didn't want to know it. He had never wanted to feel like this.
He had exactly no tools for dealing with this kind of thing, and that flatly terrified him.
So much for his famous insistence on looking underneath the underneath.